The Liquid Oxygen/liquid Methane Engine, Developed By Armadillo Aerospace With Help From NASA, Is Tested

Paranal red sprites

First imaged in 1989, red sprites are a ghostly phenomenon that occur at high altitudes above thunderstorms. Photographed here by ESO Photo Ambassador Petr Horálek, the unmistakable tendrils of multiple red sprites are spotted approximately 600 kilometres away from ESO’s Paranal Observatory above distant thunderclouds.

To capture multiple sprites in one image, two exposures were combined. The upper sprite occurred nearly 21 minutes before the lower one.

In the foreground sits a lone 1.8-metre Auxiliary Telescope, part of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT).

Credit: P. Horálek/ESO

Stephen Hawking challenges the notion of black holes as we know them in a new paper (still awaiting peer-review)

“’There is no escape from a black hole in classical theory,’ Hawking told Nature. Quantum theory, however, ‘enables energy and information to escape from a black hole’. A full explanation of the process, the physicist admits, would require a theory that successfully merges gravity with the other fundamental forces of nature. But that is a goal that has eluded physicists for nearly a century. 'The correct treatment,’ Hawking says, 'remains a mystery.’Hawking’s new work is an attempt to solve what is known as the black-hole firewall paradox, which has been vexing physicists for almost two years, after it was discovered by theoretical physicist Joseph Polchinski of the Kavli Institute and his colleagues…. (read more)”

This seemed like a good day to post some rainbow laser modes!

Light in a circular cavity makes a variety of standing wave patterns, some of which look like flowers, wagon wheels, or even tie-fighter spaceships. These images are from my simulations of the light in the cavities of nanolasers - each pattern is called a mode, and the smaller the laser, the simpler the mode tends to be.

In our lasers, the modes that tend to do the best are the whispering gallery modes - for example, the mode at the upper center.  Whispering gallery modes get their name from the whispering gallery phenomenon first noticed with sound waves in cathedral domes. People noticed that if they stood along the perimeter of some cathedral domes, the sound waves from a whisper would bounce along the walls of the dome, and could be clearly heard at certain other places along the dome’s perimeter.  In the case of our lasers, it’s light that bounces around the laser cavity - wavelengths that make an integer number of oscillations in one round trip end up forming a sort of circular standing wave.  Whispering gallery modes appear not just for light and sound, but for other kinds of waves as well, like matter waves and gravitational waves.

What is the mass of the Central Black Hole of the Phoenix Cluster?

Here’s a nice animation to blow your mind.

20 BILLION of our SUNS.

This Is What Happens When You Dissolve an Antacid On the Space Station

Ever see an antacid dissolve in water…in space? Read more via io9.

Quantum ‘spookiness’ passes toughest test yet

Experiment plugs loopholes in previous demonstrations of 'action at a distance', against Einstein's objections — and could make data encryption safer.

It’s a bad day both for Albert Einstein and for hackers. The most rigorous test of quantum theory ever carried out has confirmed that the ‘spooky action at a distance’ that the German physicist famously hated — in which manipulating one object instantaneously seems to affect another, far away one — is an inherent part of the quantum world.

The experiment, performed in the Netherlands, could be the final nail in the coffin for models of the atomic world that are more intuitive than standard quantum mechanics, say some physicists. It could also enable quantum engineers to develop a new suite of ultrasecure cryptographic devices.

“From a fundamental point of view, this is truly history-making,” says Nicolas Gisin, a quantum physicist at the University of Geneva in Switzerland.

Continue Reading.

Curiosity, Sojourner and Opportunity size comparisons to people.

via reddit

Imprisoned Molecules ‘Quantum Rattle’ in Their Cages

ScienceDaily (Aug. 20, 2012) — Scientists have discovered that a space inside a special type of carbon molecule can be used to imprison other smaller molecules such as hydrogen or water…. (read more)

Measuring Distances To Stars Just Got A Whole Lot Easier Thanks To This “Stellar Twin” Trick

Scientists have developed a novel method to calculate the distances to stars, and it could be useful in helping map the size of galaxies. The study is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The researchers from the University of Cambridge examined what are known as “stellar twins.” These are stars that are identical, with exactly the same chemical composition, which can be worked out from their spectra – the type of light they emit. If they were both placed at the same distance from Earth, they would shine with equal brightness.

So the team realized that if the distance to just one of the stars was known, the other could be calculated relatively easily based on how brightly it was shining. The dimmer it is, the further away it is, and vice versa. The method can be used to accurately measure the distance.

“It’s a remarkably simple idea – so simple that it’s hard to believe no one thought of it before,” said lead author Dr Paula Jofre Pfeil, from Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy, in a statement. “The further away a star is, the fainter it appears in the sky, and so if two stars have identical spectra, we can use the difference in brightness to calculate the distance.”

Read more ~ IFL Science

Photo credit: RealCG Animation Studio. Shutterstock.

The Science of Balloon Popping: Fragmentation vs. Opening.

Soon to be published in Physical Review Letters, the research identifies how differing levels of stress affect rubber and latex.

The first depicts a moderately inflated balloon that splits uniformly into two pieces.

The second depicts a highly inflated balloon that is under a larger level of stress, which fragments into smaller pieces when popped.

(The authors of this work are Sébastien Moulinet and Mokhtar Adda-Bedia)